Sunday, January 29, 2012

1Q) Can you please tell us the story behind this portrait? How you took it and why you choose to shoot this person?This photo was taken in 1967 or 1968.

At that time I was a student at the Art Academy in Bucharest and, just because I had a camera, a friend of a friend of a friend, got me a summer job as a stage photographer during the shooting of a feature movie. One of the things I had to do, was to take the pictures of those who wanted to be hired as extras for the film. It was almost like a police procedure: they were brought to me, I put them in front of a black wall asked them to look at me and I pressed the button like a firing squad. One of them was the man in this photo. Didn't know his name, didn't know his story. I suppose that the expression on his face would have been the same if he had a real policeman in front of him. Later I was told that he was a Jew who wanted to emigrate to Israel and was waiting for years to get a visa. I wonder If he expected me to give him one.

Anyway, I didn't think then of my self as a real photographer. I still don't.